How to Improve Digital Marketing Strategy with Data Analysis

At Delphic Digital we rely on data when we want to improve SEO campaigns, paid advertising, email marketing and user experience. Centralizing big data is often achieved by using massive spreadsheets in Excel, which allows us to quickly model the data and to get valuable insights from thousands of rows.

As I wrote in an article for SEOMoz, “Statistics is all about collecting, analyzing and interpreting data.”

The idea of combining Statistics and Excel was more of a necessity rather than a choice.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to use Excel to calculate all the statistical greatness instead of writing the mathematical formulas. The beauty of Excel is that almost everything can be done multiple ways, but Excel really “excels” in getting things done effectively.

In the article that I posted on SEOMoz, I showed multiple ways to get the same result. A great statistic add-on that I use in Excel is the Data Analysis tool, which gives me quick insights by clicking just a couple buttons. This solution is great for top-level statistics; for even deeper analysis you can always create more advanced formulas and graphs to show the “Gold.”

Analyzing data from previous campaigns and optimizing for future campaigns is great; what I consider even better is optimizing future campaigns and forecasting the data to better understand how effective the campaign will be and the return on investment. In my article, I have explained what a simple seasonal forecasting calculation looks like, which estimates the future revenue with a 3% error margin.

Excel is an amazing tool to master and use on a daily basis when analyzing data. Analytical skills and advanced knowledge of the tool can help marketers make decisions that generate additional revenue for the business. Not analyzing the data in today’s digital world can be a critical mistake and can reflect major monetary losses over time.

Does your company track digital analytics efforts? Please share via comments how you are using data to achieve your clients’ business objectives? Which other tools are you using to make better decisions? What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced when analyzing data?

Virgil is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Delphic Digital, is Certified in Google Analytics, HubSpot Inbound Marketing and Market Motive Web Analytics, and is a member of Digital Analytics Association. Follow Virgil on Twitter @virgilghic.